Statistics of the Week: US Electric Vehicle Charging Stations/Outlets, Sites and Networks

How many electric vehicle charging stations (outlets/connections) and locations (sites) are there in the US? Which charging network companies have the most locations and stations?

To answer these and other questions, we’ve downloaded and analyzed the data (as of December 31, 2017) from the Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) Alternative Fueling Station Database maintained (see notes on the data at then end) by the US Department of Energy. And for Tesla’s charger stations and locations, which we discovered were underreported in the AFDC database, we used data from Supercharge.info and Tesla’s listing of Destination Chargers.

(Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted on December 30 but has been updated with new data on January 2, 2018.)

Following are several key data points and findings:

Total Public and Private Charging Locations/Sites and Stations/Outlets

As of December 31, there are an estimated 20,178 EV public and private charging locations (sites) in the US, with 17,526 (86.9%) being available to the public. With 48,472 total public stations, each location has an average of 2.75 stations/outlets.

Data as of December 31, 2017

Of these stations/outlets, 38,360 (79.6%) are Level 2 and 7,223 (15.0%) are DC fast chargers.

Data as of December 31, 2017

Charging Stations by Charging Network

Five of the nine charging networks in the AFDC database provide 75.8% of the public charging locations in the US, led by ChargePoint with a commanding 39.3% market share and 6,895 sites. Tesla with an estimated 3,308 (18.9%) and Blink Network with 1,489 (8.5%) are a distant second and third. However, 3,801 (21.7%) of the locations in the AFDC database are not identified with any specific network.

Data as of December 31, 2017Charging Locations/Sites by Charging Network | Data as of December 31, 2017

Charging Station Types by Charging Network

Overall, 79.7% of the 48,472 installed public charging stations are Level 2 and 14.9% are DC fast chargers, nearly 3 times the percentage of Level 1 charging stations (5%). With a 45.0% market share, ChargePoint has the most total charging stations/outlets by a long shot with 21,805. The top three companies have a combined market share of 72.0% – ChargePoint (45.0%), Tesla (19.6%) and Blink Network (7.4%).

ChargePoint also has the most Level 1 charging stations with 1,416 and Level 2 at 19,848. Not surprisingly, however, Tesla’s 3,782 Superchargers dominates the DC fast charging category. With 1,608 fast charging stations, EVgo has a commanding lead on second place. Interestingly, its fast charging stations comprise 80.7% of its charging network.

The data in the Alternative Fueling Station Locator is gathered and verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which obtains information about new stations from trade media, Clean Cities coordinators, a Submit New Station form on the Station Locator website, and through collaborating with infrastructure equipment and fuel providers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and industry groups.

The Station Locator imports AeroVironment, Blink, ChargePoint, EVgo, and SemaCharge network station data directly from these networks on a daily basis.

Existing stations in the database are contacted at least once a year on an established schedule to verify they are still operational and providing the fuel specified. Based on an established data collection schedule, the database is updated on an ongoing basis. Stations that are no longer operational or no longer provide alternative fuel are removed from the database as they are identified.